How Scientists Created the Glow-In-The-Dark Rabbit
The beginning of genetic engineering and the effect in modern medicine
Glow in the dark rabbits is nothing new. Scientists have had some success injecting jellyfish genes into embryos, resulting in rabbits that briefly glow blue. These bunnies might be cute, but they don’t glow for long (about half an hour) and only at very low levels — not enough to light up a whole room.
The light emitted by these rabbits is just an accident caused by a side effect of gene insertion. The jellyfish gene codes for a Green fluorescent protein (GFP) causes the rabbit to glow green when exposed to ultraviolet light. Still, it’s also produced in all cells at normal body temperature, so it leaks out, giving the rabbit a blue tinge even when not illuminated.
To make a real glow-in-the-dark rabbit, scientists wanted to see if inserting a gene for luciferase — an enzyme found in fireflies that emits light as it reacts with oxygen during mating — would enhance the “glowing” properties of GFP. So they injected DNA from two different luciferase genes into rabbits, and from their offspring, they chose one male who lit up like a Christmas tree in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet light. The rabbits were born alive and healthy but lived no more than a few months — scientists suspect that…
